forever looking skyward
by shady stays gold
Summary: The raindrops splashed into her eyes, but she couldn't feel them at all. Her eyes kept open until she was taken away in a hovercraft and someone had the grace to close her eyelids so she wouldn't be forever looking skyward. Oneshot.


**I just got struck by this idea and felt I had to write it. Enjoy. :**)

**And no- Bridgette Rapp is not because I like rap music. It's German:**

**Bridgette means: exalted one. (In this case, I'm using exalted to mean "happy")**

**Rapp means: raven-like.**

* * *

the raindrops splashed into her eyes, but she couldn't feel them at all

her eyes kept open until she was taken away

in a hovercraft

and someone had the grace to close her eyelids

so she wouldn't be forever looking skyward

* * *

The day she was reaped it was raining.

The raindrops glistened on the Justice Building's windows like small, liquid diamonds. The windows were fogged up, but the girl didn't want to look outside. She wanted to fall asleep and wake up, finding out she just was having a terrible vivid nightmare.

"Bridgette, you have a visitor," said a Peacekeeper's sharp voice. Bridgette sat up, smoothing down her light blue dress, wondering who would come to see her. She clasped her hands nervously together.

Bridgette's mother stepped into the room with her familiar slight limp from the factory accident. Her eyes alighted on her young daughter, and her face filled with sorrow that filled the lines of her prematurely wrinkled face like the rain filled the sidewalk cracks outside. Her limp barely showed as Bridgette got up from her seat slowly. Her mother opened her arms and walked quickly toward Bridgette and they embraced.

Tears spilled down both of their faces, combining in one salty stream. Bridgette sobbed into her mother's shoulder and her mother sobbed into Bridgette's curly black hair.

"I'm going to miss you," Bridgette whispered.

"I'll miss you even more," her mother said, wiping her eyes. Her hands trembled.

"Mom," said Bridgette quietly but firmly. "When it happens... just remember..." She took a shaky breath and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "You'll see me in the sky." In the sky, or in heaven... her mother didn't know what Bridgette meant.

All poor Bridgette accomplished was making her mother even more grief-stricken.

* * *

"And here we have Bridgette Rapp of District Six!" called Caesar Flickerman. Bridgette trembled in her silky silver dress. She walked over to Caesar.

"Hello," she said quietly. Her head ached her stylist had tied her hair back so tightly.

"No need to be shy!" Caesar said, kissing her small hand. "So, what do you think of the Quell?" He grinned at her as if expecting her to act like a Capitolite.

"I think it's unfair," Bridgette managed to say. "Kill twenty-three children every year- and that's bad enough." She barely recognized her own voice as the words tumbled out of her mouth. "Killing forty-seven children is a crime."

Caesar looked at her, surprised that such a seemingly weak, scared little tribute would say something like that. He laughed, trying to lighten the mood. "Well, we make the laws here," he said. "I'm afraid you don't, sweet. By the way, what would you do if you won?"

"I-" Bridgette started. She realized right there and then she had no clue what she was going to say. "I'd... I'd probably..." she stammered. "Well, I'd-" Then it came to her. What she really wanted. What she would kill to get. "I'd go home, and I would stay with my mother until she dies." Bridgette paused. "I love my mother." Bridgette can't help it then- a salty tear runs down her cheek, followed by more.

The audience was silent at this show of affection from a tribute they thought would be a waste of an interview. Caesar started to say something but he didn't know how to make the little girl to stop crying. So Bridgette just sat there with her head in her hands, tears dripping onto her expensive silk skirt, her elaborately done hairdo messing up.

If Bridgette could see back in District Six, in the little shack her and her mother called home, she would see her mother crying too.

* * *

The arena was beautiful. It was nothing like Bridgette had ever seen- it smelled gorgeous, it looked gorgeous. It looked like a picture that belonged on a postcard, like people used to write before the Dark Days.

_I don't wish you were here,_ Bridgette thought.

She looked up at the sky as the seconds ticked down. It was a perfect shade of blue, that to Bridgette's dismay, matched the color of her reaping dress.

* * *

Bridgette was tired of walking.

She was tired of hearing the resounding boom of the cannon that symbolized the death of an innocent tribute. She was tired of the rumbling churning in her stomach, tired of eating food crumb by crumb to keep from throwing up. She was tired of crying. She was tired of being was tired of walking for miles only to realize she was going in a circle.

She was tired of living.

And now it was raining, reminding her even more of her reaping. Bridgette looked around in horror, realizing she was in a high meadow- the worst place to be in a thunderstorm.

But she didn't want to run! She didn't want to do anything. She was just so tired.

She missed her mother. She wanted her mother to wrap a quilt around her like she used to do during storms and take her to the storm cellar, where they would braid yarn and make bracelets until the storm was over.

Bridgette reached into her pocket and pulled out one of those bracelets. She felt the frizzy, fraying yarn with her blistered fingers. It was her token.

Suddenly, she felt her knees buckle, and she toppled over onto the ground, crushing the flowers underneath her. They smelled almost vomit-inducing so close up to Bridgette's face. Bridgette looked up at the sky, blinking the raindrops out of her eyes. The flowers started to smell better. She was getting used to their scent.

All right, she thought, determined. Time to get up now.

But for some reason, she just couldn't get up. It felt almost like she was lying in bed covered in warm comforters. Her hands trembled as she tried to push herself up. She breathed in deeply and the scent of flowers flooded her nostrils.

Wait- the flowers, Bridgette thought. That must be it! The food here was poison- why not the flowers?

You're getting up now, Bridgette! she screamed at herself inside. You have to get up! Suddenly she didn't want to die, she didn't want to leave the world behind, she didn't want her mother to cry anymore.

But she couldn't get up. She just couldn't.

It wasn't so peaceful anymore. Bridgette's stomach rolled. Her head pounded so badly she thought someone was banging on her head with a shield. She gritted her teeth to keep from screaming.

But then- it didn't feel terrible at all. It felt like she was floating on a lake, and she was slowly sinking. She was being rocked back and forth in her head like she was bobbing in the middle of a sea. She felt tranquility and serenity spread through her veins. Bridgette realized that the poison hadn't stopped working then- it had just finished taking effect.

She stared at the gray sky- why was everything turning black?

The raindrops splashed into her eyes, but she couldn't feel them at all. Her eyes kept open until she was taken out of the arena in a hovercraft and someone had the good grace to close her eyelids so she wouldn't be forever looking skyward.


End file.
